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David Allen Sibley's new column uses art and words to tell how to identify birdsFrom the Editor -- December 2007
Published:
October 18, 2007 Please join me in welcoming David Allen Sibley to Birder's World. "ID Toolkit," his new column, starts in this issue. You can read an online version by clicking here.
It's a safe bet, I'm sure, that each of you owns a copy of The Sibley Guide to Birds , David's beautiful and groundbreaking guide to the birds of North America. When it appeared back in 2000, it changed not only the way we looked at birds but also, as a reviewer for the New York Times predicted, the way book buyers everywhere looked at the world.
The guide spawned the wonderful Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior and a pair of useful field guides to eastern and western birds. Paul Johnsgard, himself the author of more than 40 excellent books about birds, praised the guides in our December 2003 issue: "Sibley has taken up the mantle of Roger Tory Peterson," Johnsgard wrote. "I think that Roger would be pleased with the direction that David Sibley is taking it."
My personal favorite among David's books, however, remains the slender collection of birdwatching common sense and wisdom known as Sibley's Birding Basics . "Oh, how I wish I had had this book when I was a kid just getting interested in birds!" wrote our reviewer, the ornithologist Jerry Jackson, in our April 2003 issue. "This is a guide for all of us. It reveals the real secrets of identifying birds."
Communicating secrets of identifying birds, of course, is a chief objective of this magazine, a goal that our good friend Kenn Kaufman has been allowing us to achieve since 1994. (His tips for distinguishing Clark's and Western Grebes are on page 40.) When it comes to identifying birds, though, you can't get too much information, and especially when that info comes from Kenn and David together, the very best in the business.
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